Wendell Mitchell Latimer (April 22, 1893 – July 6, 1955) was an American

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

known for the discovery of

tritium Tritium () or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of ~12.33 years. The tritium nucleus (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the ...

and his description of

oxidation states In chemistry, the oxidation state, or oxidation number, is the hypothetical charge of an atom if all of its bonds to other atoms are fully ionic. It describes the degree of oxidation (loss of electrons) of an atom in a chemical compound. Concep ...

in the book ''The Oxidation States of the Elements and Their Potentials in Aqueous Solution''. He received his Ph.D from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

for the work with

George Ernest Gibson George Ernest Gibson (November 9, 1884 – August 26, 1959) was a Scottish-born American nuclear chemist. Early years George Ernest Gibson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and educated partly in Germany where he attended a gymnasium in Darmstadt ...

Awards and honors

Latimer received many awards and honor during his lifetime including membership in the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

, and chairmanship of its Section of Chemistry from 1947 to 1950; the Distinguished Service Award from his alma mater, the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

, in 1948; the President's Certificate of Merit, in 1948; Faculty Research Lecture in 1953, an honor that the Academic Senate of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

annually bestows upon one of its members; the William H. Nichols Medal from the New York Section of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

, in 1955 with a citation for his "Pioneer Studies on the

Thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, Work (thermodynamics), work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed b ...

Electrolyte An electrolyte is a substance that conducts electricity through the movement of ions, but not through the movement of electrons. This includes most soluble Salt (chemistry), salts, acids, and Base (chemistry), bases, dissolved in a polar solven ...

s, especially the Entropies of Ions in Aqueous Solutions."

Discovery of tritium

In 1933 Latimer used the recently discovered

Allison effect Fred C. Allison (July 4, 1882 – August 2, 1974) was an American physicist. He developed a Magneto-optic effect, magneto-optic spectroscopy method that became known as the Allison magneto-optic method. He claimed to have discovered two new eleme ...

to discover

Gilbert N. Lewis Gilbert Newton Lewis (October 23 or October 25, 1875 – March 23, 1946) was an American physical chemist and a dean of the college of chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. Lewis was best known for his discovery of the covalent bon ...

bet against his discovery, and he had to pay when Latimer showed him his data. However, that same year the Allison effect was discredited in the eyes of the scientific community, and the discovery of tritium was credited to

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both Atomic physics, atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nu ...

in 1934. Latimer explained years later he had been unable to reproduce his results, and he couldn't even find where he had gone wrong. The events were cited by

Irving Langmuir Irving Langmuir (; January 31, 1881 – August 16, 1957) was an American chemist, physicist, and metallurgical engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry. Langmuir's most famous publicatio ...

in his 1953 speech about

pathological science Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."Irving Langmuir, "Colloquium on Pathological Science," held at the Knolls Research La ...

Publications

* ''The Oxidation States of the Elements and Their Potentials in Aqueous Solution''

ASIN Asin Thottumkal (born 26 October 1985), known mononyomusly as Asin, is an Indian former actress who appeared predominantly in Tamil cinema, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu language, Telugu films. Asin is a recipient of List of awards and nominations ...

B000GRXLSA published 1938.

References

*
Wendell Mitchell Latimer
1893 births 1955 deaths 20th-century American chemists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences University of Kansas alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni People from Garnett, Kansas {{US-chemist-stub